Oh, I know about the political split between NOVA and the rest of the state. But the conservative element was able to vote McDonnell in and the majority seemed fairly happy with laws requiring probes be rammed into women's orifices and who knows what else insanity until nationwide ridicule forced a retreat. VA will probably have McAuliffe for one term, followed by another conservative, swing back to the left, ad nauseam.

McDonnell won because he ran an excellent campaign. He was helped by a terrible opponent, but he still won with the highest percentage of the vote since 1961 and won in most of the counties of Northern Virginia as well. McDonnell ran on his "Bob's for Jobs" platform and was eventually bogged down by the more conservative elements of his party throughout his term and an unfortunate scandal.

The GOP changed their nominating procedure. Cuccinelli's goons changed the nominating procedure from a primary to a convention filled with activists. A perfect outlet for a candidate like Sarvis.

Um...pretty sure he left the GOP between 2011 and 2013, so, not really. In fact...

Quote:

n 2011, Sarvis ran unopposed for the Republican nomination for State Senate in the heavily Democratic-leaning Virginia's 35th district. In the general election in November, he lost to DemocratDick Saslaw, then the Senate Majority Leader, 62% to 36%. Sarvis was outspent by his opponent Saslaw $1,897,061 to $26,402.

Shortly after the 2011 elections, Sarvis left the Republican Party, saying that "I realized that the Republican Party, at least in Virginia, in the current era, is not a good vehicle for liberty candidates. Republicans are very strident on personal issues. When they talk about liberty, they donít mean any personal issues, there is very little respect for personal autonomy."

2. He ran against a Democratic Majority Leader. It's tough to defeat an incumbent to begin with. It's even tougher to defeat an incumbent who resides in a district that heavily swings towards his/her party and is the party leader in the legislature.

2. He ran against a Democratic Majority Leader. It's tough to defeat an incumbent to begin with. It's even tougher to defeat an incumbent who resides in a district that heavily swings towards his/her party and is the party leader in the legislature.

The GOP and libertarians do not get along. Insanity...same thing over and over again...expecting a different result...that's libertarians trying to take control of the GOP. Will. Not. Happen.

but if it did happen, then I guess hell froze over, and we are getting that Green Lantern sequel after all.

A complete takeover of the GOP cannot happen. There are far too many factions within the party. But the libertarian faction can gain more and more influence. If you actually want to see libertarian policies implemented, you need to look at this in a realistic manner.

A complete takeover of the GOP cannot happen. There are far too many factions within the party. But the libertarian faction can gain more and more influence. If you actually want to see libertarian policies implemented, you need to look at this in a realistic manner.

A true libertarian faction can not take over unless they rid themselves of the social conservatives. The Republicans party best option is to drop having "strict conservative" principles for social issues be the guideline for most candidates. If a Republican candidate wants to be pro gay marriage allow him to be pro gay marriage, if they want to be pro choice allow them to be pro choice, if you have enough people bucking the trend then your party doesn't look like the party that wants Jesus to rule the country then all of a sudden you look like a fiscal conservative party that allows a big tent of viewpoints in other areas

To me a perfect example of how social conservative ruins fiscal conservatism is Planned Parenthood. It's estimated every dollar spent in Planned Parenthood saves the country 5 dollars long term. Call me funny but if I was a pragmatic fiscal conservative I would take that deal everytime, but once you put social conservative values into the equation it muddies the waters.

Second, subsidies for family planning more than pay for themselves. The pregnancies that are prevented by publicly financed contraception tend to involve low-income women who, if they were to become pregnant, would be disproportionately likely to claim government benefits (Medicaid, welfare cash assistance, food stamps, and so forth) for themselves and their families. Preventing these pregnancies—even if they are simply delayed until the women in question have improved their financial situations—saves taxpayers money. In the studies described above, we found that an expansion in subsidies for family planning services would likely save taxpayers more than five dollars for every one dollar that the government spends. Given the strong cost-saving properties of these subsidies, they ought to be particularly appealing to fiscal conservatives who are concerned about our yawning national debt and the burden that it will place on current and future generations of taxpayers.

But that's just it. Unlike the more unified Democrats, the GOP is a mishmash of libertarians, neoconservatives, evangelicals, moderates, etc. It's impossible for any faction to get 100% of what they want. You can't just get rid of and marginalize an important faction, you have no choice but to deal with them all.

But that's just it. Unlike the more unified Democrats, the GOP is a mishmash of libertarians, neoconservatives, evangelicals, moderates, etc.

The only think that unifies the Democrats is their dislike for Republican values. I am guessing you will find many Demcorats who might agree with 50% or more of what the Republicans stand for but on issues that count the Republicans fail. Democrats are far from perfect but they are much better then the other option

I think a perfect example for me is I think defense spending is beyond ridiculous, now I would argue the Democrats are slightly better in this regard then the Republicans. That doesn't mean I think they are good or even competent, it's just the much less of 2 evils.

In the case of Republicans I think it's a case of 40+ years of saying the right things but doing very little about it to certain groups and now they see there issues falling by the wayside they want results.

No, the Democrats are seriously a more unified party. They have a basic ideology that both the more moderate and more progressive members adhere to. They believe in the social safety net, they believe in government regulation of a free market economy and Keynesian economics, they believe in civil equality for everyone. It all just comes down to how much of that ideology they follow. Some call for it to a lesser extent, some call for it to the extreme. But they're all united in the basic building blocks of that ideology. The modern day Democratic Party is essentially FDR's Democratic Party.

The GOP on the other hand is a mishmash of factions with completely incompatible ideals. There really is no unifying basis for the GOP, is it the Party of Lincoln? Or the Party of Reagan? Or Theodore Roosevelt's Party? Are they the ideological successors to the Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton? Or is it the GOP of Barry Goldwater?

The GOP on the other hand is a mishmash of factions with completely incompatible ideals.

I will agree the Republicans sort of developed a very rigid set of principles, while the Democrats give more leeway on some issues. I think the fact the Democrats basically had to find pieces to get to 51% of the vote made them more open to certain issues and flexibility on that issue.

I can see what happened to the Republicans though happening to the Democrats in 15-30 years where the extreme parts of the party start getting more vocal and want payback. I do think the Democrats do a good job of basically leaving them in the back parts of the room

Quote:

Originally Posted by hippie_hunter

The GOP on the other hand is a mishmash of factions with completely incompatible ideals. There really is no unifying basis for the GOP, is it the Party of Lincoln? Or the Party of Reagan? Or Theodore Roosevelt's Party? Are they the ideological successors to the Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton? Or is it the GOP of Barry Goldwater?

They are a party of a fictional Ronald Reagan who never existed. On the subject of Reagan does anybody see the irony how conservative use "hollywood" liberals as a way to demigog the Democrats but their champion was Mr Hollywood himself.

Hippie Hunter, I have zero desire to work with the factions in the GOP. I believe the two major parties are what got us into this mess by getting elected over and over again. There's little point in voting for a major party, when I honestly believe nothing will change for the better.

I have little faith that the GOP wants libertarians. I imagine Rand Paul will be more of a force in 2016, thanks to his dad, but I think he'll fall short of getting the nomination. Even if he got the nomination...I can't see myself voting for him. I don't know everything about him, but I just trust Gary Johnson and Ron Paul more than Rand.

I will agree the Republicans sort of developed a very rigid set of principles, while the Democrats give more leeway on some issues. I think the fact the Democrats basically had to find pieces to get to 51% of the vote made them more open to certain issues and flexibility on that issue.

Here's the truth. The Democrats don't give more leeway to their members. Just like with the GOP primaries, the only people who vote in Democratic primaries are the motivated, ideological, grassroots base while moderates tend to sit at home. In 2010, just as many Democratic incumbents were primaried out of their job as Republican incumbents for not adhering to the ideological base of the Democratic Party. And Blanche Lincoln's primary challenge in Arkansas from a left wing challenge severely hurt her in the general election. In 2012, seven Democratic incumbents lost their primaries compared to six Republicans (two Democrats lost their renomination from non-incumbent challengers compared to the GOP's three). In the area that I live in, the incumbent mayor of Rochester, NY just lost his re-election bid in a primary from a (corrupt) challenger who ran a campaign appealing to the left flank of the Democratic Party.

EDIT: To add to my point further, look at the NYC Primary. Anthony Weiner ran on a campaign to appeal to the extremely progressive base and was leading quite comfortably until his scandal turned out to still be ongoing and he responded by acting like a total douchenozzle. When Weiner became an unviable candidate, the extreme progressive base turned to Bill de Blazio.

This idea that Democrats are somehow allowing their members to not be as rigid to ideology is just a blatant falsehood.

Quote:

I can see what happened to the Republicans though happening to the Democrats in 15-30 years where the extreme parts of the party start getting more vocal and want payback. I do think the Democrats do a good job of basically leaving them in the back parts of the room

Yeah.....that already happened. 2008 was the year where more ideologically progressive members of the Democratic Party backed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton after 20+ years of centrist candidates like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry dominated the scene. As a result, we have seen the Clintons shift more to the left in the Obama years in response to this.

EDIT: To bring up the NYC mayor race again, look at what we saw. The candidate who ran on the most progressive platform won comfortably, many of which were tired of seeing the decades of Ed Koch, Rudy Guiliani, and Michael Bloomberg.

Quote:

They are a party of a fictional Ronald Reagan who never existed. On the subject of Reagan does anybody see the irony how conservative use "hollywood" liberals as a way to demigog the Democrats but their champion was Mr Hollywood himself.

You're really missing the point here. The point is that there is no base of political ideology and no political icon for the GOP to unify on, unlike the Democrats.

And Hollywood liberals deserve the criticism they get. The problem isn't their ideology. The problem is that a lot of Hollywood liberals are borderline comedic in their displays of showing off their political viewpoints. The Boondocks did a great job of parodying how bad Hollywood swooned over Obama.

Quote:

Originally Posted by enterthemadness

Hippie Hunter, I have zero desire to work with the factions in the GOP. I believe the two major parties are what got us into this mess by getting elected over and over again. There's little point in voting for a major party, when I honestly believe nothing will change for the better.

Okay, well you can enjoy getting absolutely nothing that you want enacted.

Quote:

I have little faith that the GOP wants libertarians. I imagine Rand Paul will be more of a force in 2016, thanks to his dad, but I think he'll fall short of getting the nomination. Even if he got the nomination...I can't see myself voting for him. I don't know everything about him, but I just trust Gary Johnson and Ron Paul more than Rand.

The 2016 nomination race is shaping up to be IMO between Rand Paul and Chris Christie. What's going to boost Rand a lot is the fact that GOP primary voters after George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, are going to want a more ideological candidate.

Latest polling is showing that the race between McAullife and Cuccinelli is tightening. Most experts think that Sarvis is going to underperform his polling numbers (similar to what happened to Chris Dagget in 2009). Quinnipac is giving McAullife a 4 point lead. Emerson College is giving McAullife a 2 point lead. Rasmussen and Newport University give him a 7 point lead.

If Sarvis doesn't hold onto to his polling support, this could really lead to an interesting night.